Raxco PerfectDisk Pro is a disk defragmentation software which also includes various supporting features to keep your hard drive running smoothly. The defragmentation is quick compared to other defrag software’s. It includes features such as: OptiWrite that helps prevent fragmentation before it happens; and space management that detects and removes duplicates, recycles the recycle bin and removes temporary files and much more which we would come across in the review later. It supports all Windows operating systems including the new Windows 8.

Installation

Installation is quick and easy. The program starts with the defragmentation tab along with a welcome screen-showing you the status of PefectDisk.

Features

Raxco PerfectDisk Pro includes many functionalities but defragmentation is its main function. The first defragmentation can take over an hour or so depending on your hard drive usage, but the subsequent ones take 25 minutes or even less. After the defragmentation is completed you’ll be shown the results. It provides a very detailed view of what was done during defrag.

The next top feature for Raxco PerfectDisk Pro is the StealthPatrol. It is used to set automatic fragmentation prevention and for optimizing your system when it isn’t busy. It runs in background.

Another new feature is OptiWrite, which helps prevent fragmentation from occurring by detecting when/where OS is going to place a fragmented file. You can select the exclusion time when you don’t want OptiWrite to occur.

The OptiWrite and auto-optimization will keep your computer running smoothly and will help prevent fragmentation.

Scheduling provides you options to schedule the time you want the defragmentation to occur: daily, or weekly. A clean of recycle bin and temporary files can also be done before the defragmentation when you are setting the scheduling.

The space management is where you’ll be able to perform a clean of recycle bin and temporary files in the recycler, along with scan for duplicates for text documents, picture, video, music and/or other files. There is a space report using which you can know where the hard disk space is being used. The scans for space management are pretty quick and get completed in couple of minutes.

The S.M.A.R.T. feature tells you how your hard drive is performing, how the health of the hard drive is now and what the current temperature is. It also shows you various parameters of the hard drive and notifies you up on any alert.

The Dashboard shows the status of the defragmentation and provides counts of how many: fragments where prevented, eliminated and defragmented. It also gives you the status of last optimization, S.M.A.R.T, the scheduled tasks and Alerts.

The Global settings provide you the options to configure operation of Raxco PerfectDisk Pro. It allows you to change how it manages the boot file and windows prefetch, select log and trace level, and program update settings. Also if you have installed it on a laptop, you can set it not to run when on battery.

The drive options lets you change the way it optimizes connected drives: USB, flash drives, SSD, and to exclude the hibernate file. The system resource priority gives you CPU management capability while running Raxco PerfectDisk Pro.You can exclude certain drives from alerts and change global alert settings as per your need.

The S.M.A.R.T. settings allow changing temperature unit to either Celsius or Fahrenheit and set a critical temperature. The last setting is for the duplicates wherein you can exclude certain files for duplicate search.

Thoughts and Conclusion

Raxco PerfectDisk Pro is very decent defragmentation software which does what it says. You’ll notice huge improvement for your hard drive right after first use. It keeps fragmentation to a minimum as well as reduces the disk from frequent fragmentation. It also recognizes SSD and performs optimization. The OptiWrite provides better performance with less or no fragmentation as it directs OS as to where read/write the files.